In his address, Pahor looked back at the economic and financial crisis that caught the world unaware a decade ago, saying that he would not want to project a new crisis, but that responsible politicians should do what was possible to prepare for a potentially strained situation.
He also said that the political stability in the country in the past four years had allowed for a degree of predictability in the business environment, something that he believes should remain the case going forward.
"Political stability will be a valuable instrument when we face up to the situation in the next four years. Given that Slovenia will have a minority government, it will be the more important that dialogue should prevail in politics," he said.
Addressing entrepreneurs and businessmen gathered in Celje, Pahor said that as president he was not at liberty to discuss government policies, being that this was in the purview of the prime minister. But he did say that dialogue between political parties and social partners would be key for political stability.
He said it was important to form a new big social pact at a time "when we have a relatively stimulative business environment, when our exporters are posting phenomenal results, the economic growth is more solid and when social factors appear to be corrected as well".
He pledged to do everything in his power to help build trust among key protagonists to agree certain predictable changes to economic and other policies. "It's unnecessary to give up the opportunity to keep posting good results in the coming years," Pahor said.
Levelling more criticism towards the incoming government, the president of the OZS chamber of small business, Branko Meh, stressed the appetite for the companies' profits were big.
He thus urged the government to not suffocate the Slovenian economy by additionally burdening it instead of unburdening it and eliminating red tap as promised before the elections.
Meh noted it took a lot of time to recover from the last economic crisis. "It would be worst if we caused another crisis by ourselves, so business expects the new government to secure an encouraging business environment."
As a representatives of Serbia as this year's partner country at the fair, Serbian Deputy PM and Trade Minister Ljajić pointed to "the excellent political and economic relations" between Serbia and Slovenia.
In the absence of major open issues, economic cooperation has taken a major new step forward, as bilateral trade topped EUR 1bn for the first time, he said.
Slovenia is Serbia's ninth most important export market and places the fourth largest investor in Serbia after Germany, Italy and Austria, said the minister, but added there was still more potential to be tapped into, so an action plan would be jointly drafted to take trade to another level.
Slovenian outgoing Economy Minister Zdravko Počivalšek also addressed the press as he presented his ministry's stand at the fair, stressing that it was a celebration of the Slovenian economy and reflected the economy's success.
Počivalšek noted that the stand presented all five directorates of the ministry and all agencies, including the SPIRIT investment promotion agency and the Slovenian Tourism Board (STO). "We are presenting all of the ministry's activities."
Among other things, the ministry will present categorisation of accommodation facilities, women entrepreneurship, favourable financial incentives by state institutions and structural funds and other useful information for micro, small- and medium-sized companies.
The country's leading trade fair, which will draw to a close on Sunday, features around 1,400 exhibitors and a number of accompanying events. The organisers expect that around 120,000 people will have visited it by the end of the week.
